What colours to paint my (Victorian, pebbled-dash) house?
Discussion
Our house is a late-1800s Victorian terraced house - one of tens of thousands of virtually-identical houses that seem to form a ring around Zone 3.
Since we bought it we've done a lot of work to the house, but later this year we're undertaking a series of cosmetic improvements: fix the garden, replace the staircase, re-plaster and redecorate downstairs..
The biggy, though, is the outside of the house which is pebble-dashed, and which I intend to have painted. If sustained bomb damage during the war so underneath is a combination of yellow London bricks, breeze blocks, and red bricks. There's no feasible way of stripping it off and re-pointing. We did look at the option of rendering the walls smooth but the cost is still prohibitively expensive. So, paint it is!
Despite the pebble-dashing it still retains a lot of the lovely original external stone/plasterworks around the bay and windows (which will be sanded and brought back to former glory as part of the works on the exterior of the house) - including the original inner-edges of the window surrounds.
The intention is to use two different shades of paint outside: one for the walls themselves, and another for these features. Our builder has recommended Dulux Weathershield, and SWMBO has demanded no shades of grey, so I'm now stuck trying to work out what colours to use.
I wondered about a muted green for the walls and crisp white for the features, but I'd be lying if I didn't say part of the intentions with all this work is - in a couple of years - to improve our prospects of selling again so green might not be the best choice.
So, what do you think? What colours should I be painting my house?
Since we bought it we've done a lot of work to the house, but later this year we're undertaking a series of cosmetic improvements: fix the garden, replace the staircase, re-plaster and redecorate downstairs..
The biggy, though, is the outside of the house which is pebble-dashed, and which I intend to have painted. If sustained bomb damage during the war so underneath is a combination of yellow London bricks, breeze blocks, and red bricks. There's no feasible way of stripping it off and re-pointing. We did look at the option of rendering the walls smooth but the cost is still prohibitively expensive. So, paint it is!
Despite the pebble-dashing it still retains a lot of the lovely original external stone/plasterworks around the bay and windows (which will be sanded and brought back to former glory as part of the works on the exterior of the house) - including the original inner-edges of the window surrounds.
The intention is to use two different shades of paint outside: one for the walls themselves, and another for these features. Our builder has recommended Dulux Weathershield, and SWMBO has demanded no shades of grey, so I'm now stuck trying to work out what colours to use.
I wondered about a muted green for the walls and crisp white for the features, but I'd be lying if I didn't say part of the intentions with all this work is - in a couple of years - to improve our prospects of selling again so green might not be the best choice.
So, what do you think? What colours should I be painting my house?
8-P said:
Remove the pebble dash, back to brick :-)
kiethton said:
I'd go back to brick (with a thorough clean/blast)
I wish it were possible to go back to brick. Ignoring how prohibitively expensive it is (our cheapest quote was £7,000), underneath that pebbledash is a mosaic of original London yellow brick, breeze blocks, and red bricks.. It would not be the most attractive thing to unveil (although admittedly still more attractive than the pebbledash!)LaurasOtherHalf said:
Muted green and white does look nice, are there any other houses with painted pebbledash in the vicinity? A very muted lemon yellow looks nice too
There's lots and lots of painted pebbledash houses in the area: some of them seemingly better done (or more recently) than others! They are mainly either magnolia, or lemony-yellow (which looks good, perhaps not quite to my tastes though)The safe choice would be to paint the walls white, and use magnolia for the features/surrounds but it feels a little 'safe'.
There's a muted-green-and-white house I walk past every day on my way into work. Admittedly it's a totally different style, era, and not pebbledash.. but I wonder if this might work quite well. As I say though: last thing we want to do it spend all this money and end up putting potential future buyers off!
freakynessless said:
I used Dulux Weathershield to paint our pebble-dashed house 9 years ago. Good paint, but the process of painting pebble-dash is a massive ballache. It needs doing again to be honest and I'm putting it off as long as I possibly can!
Most of the house was already painted - badly and it hadn't been done for years. There was also a section where our porch had been added which hadn't been painted at all. Both required two coats for a decent finish. You may also want to look at using a stabiliser too depending on the condition of your walls.
In terms of colour we went for County Cream, but that may not be to your taste.
I'd love to see how it turned out if you have a photo to share? I know that painted exteriors come with some additional maintenance needs, so fully prepared to paint it again in the future should it need it. We're very lucky in that we have a really excellent local handyman/building firm who are going to undertake the work (a minimum two coats with stabiliser included) at a reasonable cost - I helped a friend paint his pebble-dash a few years ago.. I know the pain all too well! Most of the house was already painted - badly and it hadn't been done for years. There was also a section where our porch had been added which hadn't been painted at all. Both required two coats for a decent finish. You may also want to look at using a stabiliser too depending on the condition of your walls.
In terms of colour we went for County Cream, but that may not be to your taste.
princeperch said:
If you did decide to go back to brick and then replace the errant bricks, the cheapest quote you will get is from the Essex brickwork company in Brentwood. They've done loads of houses in our street and I think they charge about 1500 quid give or take to do the front.
That sounds remarkably cheap! Thanks for the headsup, I've dropped them an email. Given what we know about what lurks beneath the pebble-dash (ie: front should be original and sound), I'm now wondering whether it's worth stripping the 'dash from the front of the house, and then simply painting it at the rear.. Something along these lines:
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